


Aftermath

by mrkinch



Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drabble Collection, Elves, Gen, Hobbits, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-26
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:33:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrkinch/pseuds/mrkinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>four drabbles of events after the fall of Barad-dûr</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spring in Rivendell (Elrond)

The Shadow had gone. Elrond sensed its absence with every step, every breath, every thought. There was a lightness to the very air, something he remembered from the first fall of Barad-dûr, and twice before that. But there was also a strange and subtle dullness that muted the green of new growth and the music of water and of bird. Vilya, his companion through the fearful struggle, still shone but dimly. He had foreseen the fading of its power, but his grief was not lessened. On that early spring day Elrond first knew with certainty that he would leave Middle-earth.


	2. Cleansing the Forest (Celeborn and Galadriel)

Celeborn led his host out from Lórien's ruined edge onto great Anduin, their boats crossing the river like silver-grey leaves before a gale. Galadriel was beside him, their thoughts shared. The Shadow's outpost that had menaced the valley for near an age they would destroy to its very roots and, free of that evil, Greenwood the Great would be renewed. Yet little would come of it to benefit their beloved land of mallorn and niphredil. Already they saw the ravages of battle heal less swiftly than before the Shadow's fall. _This work will be our last great gift to Middle-Earth._


	3. A Different Spring (Celeborn)

Thranduil greets me gravely, his courtesy less strained than I remember. My lady and I have smiled between ourselves at how he clings to grievances of his father's time. But if he knew the power she kept by her, hoarded against Morgoth's Shadow's shadow, maybe his disdain fed on newer grief as well.

Then do I see pity? Perhaps he thinks we are helpless now as the Three fade. Again he mistakes us. Yet pity is not misplaced. We will feel this new spring in Lórien more keenly than any of this age, even as the coming of my winter.


	4. The Red Book (Elanor Gardner)

She often forgot that she had never known Mr Frodo. When her father read from the Red Book, some scent about his study would remind her fleetingly of moments for which she had no name. But Mr Frodo was as real to her father as the potatoes he set her younger brothers to dig or the flowerbed under the front window that he always tended himself. ”Mr Frodo liked a good front garden,” he would say, but she knew he was remembering wonders overheard there. When someone you love dearly loves someone who is gone, their memories become your own.


End file.
